Conversations for lovers, artists, writers, revolutionaries and other noncompliant troublemakers

Letting Go

I have, on my desk, a small clay sculpture of a woman with her hands cupped in front of her chest. She holds a tiny clay bird and is surrounded by a couple of crystals, a piece of amethyst and a small geode. This little altar has been my daily companion for years. Wise and smiling, round and nurturing, the sculpture has comforted me through many losses, grief and rage. She’s one of my greatest treasures.

Letting Go

These days, the bird she holds is perched on the rim of the wooden dish that she sits on, looking out at the room, at the world, at me. It can stay, or it can fly away. For now, it is content to sit, watching and listening, as I live my life in these two small rooms at the top of our sagging farmhouse.

I have placed tiny polished garnets in the woman’s cupped hands where the bird once nestled.

I had a friend, dear and wise, in my old place who once said to me that if we open our hands and let something go, and keep our hands open, something new will come and fill them. As she spoke, I again saw the image of an open hand, generous, allowing freedom, and prepared to welcome and support the next thing, and the next.

Letting go is power. Letting go is serenity. Letting go is an authentic act of love toward self and others. The usefulness of letting go is not a secret. Almost any self-help book out there talks about it as an aspect of healthy functioning, but I think popular psychology doesn’t explore it deeply enough.

Letting go doesn’t mean we brush aside our feelings. Not at all. Unexpressed feelings cement us in place. We all know people who remain frozen in time because of a death or traumatic event. Years and decades pass, but they don’t heal. They don’t move on. Their emotional growth is arrested. This is what unfinished emotional business looks like. Unexpressed feelings can’t flow through us and dissipate so we can release them.

We know very little about appropriately expressing our feelings in this culture.

Feelings aren’t thoughts. They’re not stories, expectations, beliefs or ideology. They’re not labels or rules. Like it or not, admit it or not, we’re physiologically wired for feelings, and they give us good information about how things are with us. Our thoughts and beliefs, on the other hand, are frequently distorted, confused, inaccurate, misinformed, outdated or otherwise unreliable.

That’s where letting go comes in.

We’ve all had events in our life that left deep scars. We’ve all seen things we can’t unsee, heard things we can’t unhear and done things we can’t undo. We’ve all felt disempowered or victimized at one time or another. Death and disaster enter our lives with no warning and take those we love.

Some people move on from such events with more grace than others. I suspect part of that grace has to do with forgiveness. Not forgetfulness, but forgiveness of self and others. I suspect another part is the ability to fully experience and express the feelings attached to the event. That requires a certain kind of support, and many folks don’t have it. Some people simply don’t choose to move on or let go. They center their thoughts, feelings and energy in the event, whatever it was, and they hold it tight, cherishing it, feeding the fire of their pain, keeping their scars open with the razor blade of their attention and focus. It becomes part of their identity, part of their story, a grievance to cling to, a betrayal to treasure, a wound to worship.

Photo by Andrey Grinkevich on Unsplash

I have a book called Clean Sweep, by Denny Sargent. It’s filled with rituals and instructions to help us let go of what no longer serves us. The author outlines a banishing exercise in which he suggests the reader visualize holding tightly to a thorny branch. In my own version, the branch is heavy, so heavy I can hardly hold it, which drives the thorns deeply into my flesh. The branch is a person, event, memory or belief that gives us emotional pain. We can make an easy choice and cling to it, cradle it, embrace it, let it tear our skin and make us bleed. We can make a harder choice and set it down, open our hands and let it fall. We can walk away from it. We can burn it or bury it.

In order to let go, we have to be willing to surrender control and endure loss. Letting go of a core piece of identity, a long-held belief or a painful memory is difficult work, even when that core piece, belief or memory gives us great pain. Letting go will leave a hole. Then what? Then who are we? How do we fill that hole? How do we understand ourselves and our place in the world? This is scary stuff.

Photo by a-shuhani on Unsplash

Aristotle said nature abhors a vacuum. My friend was right. If we open our hand and release what we’re holding, something else will come, though we can’t predict or control what it might be. In fact, the thing released might return to us in another form. We can’t know. We’ll never know unless we release our need to control. We’ll never find out what might perch on our open hand if we’re not willing to walk through loss in order to reach gain.

I’m having a long and involved break up with my desire to control. Some days I go all day without thinking about it, and other days I want to micromanage everyone and everything in my life. Some days I feel light and free, a confident and lovely woman, and other days I feel like a grubby three-year-old hiding under the covers sucking my thumb because nothing and no one is the way I want them to be. I sulk and pout and snarl and I feel crushed by the thorny weight of my need to control.

I feel annoyed when people tell me to “get over it.” First of all, I have a right to my feelings, and secondly, it’s not that easy. Letting go, for me, is a practice, and I need time to engage in it. Sometimes I go back and find my leaden armful of hawthorn or bramble or locust and hold it again for a while, opening up all the old wounds, exhausting myself, hurting myself, and, finally, opening my hands and letting it fall again. Sometimes I need to design a ritual for letting go, a prayer or a dance or some kind of purification rite. Sometimes I need to make a physical resting place, like a grave or a patch of garden or a newly-planted tree in order to let something go. For me, taking time to honor whatever it is I’m trying to release is helpful. Whatever it is that no longer serves, it was once a part of my life and experience. Laying things to rest in this way helps me release them fully and finally.

When it comes right down to it, this blog has been an exercise in letting go as much as anything else.

Photo by Ester Marie Doysabas on Unsplash

When we know how to let go, we increase our power, as well as the power of others. Often, what we desperately hold onto is people. This is a strong archetype in old stories; locking the beautiful maiden in the stone tower to “protect” her. Part of love, as any seasoned parent will tell you, is letting go. Imprisoning, disempowering and trying to control others isn’t love. Refusing to let go of someone isn’t love.

Releasing our grievances with others frees them as well as ourselves. Being willing to accept an apology, an explanation, and the imperfections of others allows us all to move forward with lighter loads. The stories and memories we hurt ourselves with are often ghosts, events involving people who are long dead and far in the past. We can choose to bless them and lay them to rest.

I don’t want to haul around painful memories, toxic garbage, the futility of trying to control life and ineffective behaviors and beliefs. I can’t swim with all that tied to my ankle. I can’t dance. I can’t embrace anything or anyone with an armful of brambles. I can’t create with a heart full of thorns.

I want to be free.

I open my hands.

Photo by Stephen Leonardi on Unsplash

Make a Boat

Make a boat out of who you are not what you have. If you don’t know who you are (Search for the desert between the worlds. Find the Lady of Bones. Recollect. Reassemble. Bathe in soul. Birth yourself.) That is another journey.

Your boat will be small. You can take no one. You can take no thing.

Shape your boat with the entirety of your truth. Shape it with the joy in your hands and the wisdom in the soles of your feet. Make a chisel of rage and grief. Sand with the grit of clarity. Stain with blood. Oil your boat with the moisture and musk of your life. Take your time And remember Fear does not float.

When you know the boat is ready, Sit in it. Lay the backs of your hands on your knees. Open your hands. Let everything go. Let everything go.

Keep your hands open So that new things may come.

Without fear Ask the one who stands just behind your shoulder The one who shelters your life in the shadow of her wing To come forward. She will guide the boat.

Really needed to read this today. Letting go is hard and never-ending work for me. I’m always circling back to relearn the lesson. Also, I love the sculpture of the woman with open hands. She really speaks to me.

Letting go is hard, but then, so is hanging on! I frequently circle back, too, but practice is good, right? I wish I could remember/find the name of the artist who made my clay woman, but I can’t. I’ve had her for several years, now. I’d like to give one as a gift to everyone I know! Thanks for allowing me to share her with you. Jenny